British Campaign for the Defence of Political Prisoners and Human Rights in Indonesia

TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981

ARMY'S CONTROL OF LAW SECTOR NOW ABSOLUTE

A shift-round in the personnel controlling the key posts in the judiciary and law sectors has given the Anny absolute control of the entire legal apparatus in Indonesia. Three Army generals now occupy the posts of Chairman of the Supreme Court, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General; General Mudjono, until now the Minister of Justice, has been appointed Chairman of the Supreme Court (replacing Professor Oemar Seno Adji who has retired), General Ali Said has been shifted from Attorney-General to become Minister of Justice, and General Ismael Saleh, until now chairman of the Coordinating Agency for Capital Invest­ment, has become the new Attorney-General.

All three are graduates of the Military Law Academy (Tempo, 21st February 1981) and have spent much of their careers working in military courts. Ali Said has presided over several Extraordinary Military Tribunals (Mahmillub) including the one which passed death sentence against Dr. Subandrio, former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister; Mudjono has been chairman of military courts in Jakarta and Medan; and Ismael Saleh has worked as army prosecutor (oditur) in Jakarta as well as in Menado. Tempo wrily comments that there are now prospects of "close collaboration" between this trio of top "law-enforcement officers".

Human rights lawyer, Adnan Buyung Nasution, speaking about the new appointments at a law seminar at the Uni­veristy of Indonesia, said: "Under the present legal and political system, nothing will change, however mighty the three senior officers may be."

A crucilll problem is that of freeing the judiciary from direct interference and control by the executive. The new set-up will surely take the system even farther from this objective than ever.

The new appointments come in the wake of numerous public exposures about corruption among judges, many of whom are known to function under strong external in­fluences, both from ''those in power as well as from hard

cash". (Tempo, 28th February 1981).

Four Senior Judges Suspended In January, four senior Jakarta judges, including the chair­person of the Jakarta District CO\lrt, recently appointed as an appeal judge, were temporarily dismissed and are re­portedly under investigation for corruption. The press has reported a system of institutionalised brokerage in the courts, with the chairperson offering lucrative cases to whichever judge can promise him the largest share in his own earnings from the case. In addition, brokers in touch with barristers and their clients roam the court offices, keeping contact with judges and court clerks, offering bribes to whichever judge promises the "best" verdict. JUdges blackmail people facing charges by delaying hearings and verdicts, ordering arrests or releases, confiscating or releasing property, and so on.

The dismissals in January followed an incident in December when one of the judges was caught red-handed accepting a bribe. The investigation that followed led to other exposures.

Some lawyers have for several years spoken publicly about"court mafias" operating with the collaboration of both judges and prosecutors as well as some members of the

Continued on page 2

In this issue: Free-Aceh Supporters on Trial ........... page 2

Ex-Tapol Seeks to Defend His Rights ...... page 5

The "Indonesianisation" of East Timor ..... page 6

US State Department Report on Human Rights ................... page 8.

FREE-ACEH SUPPORTERS ON TRIAL

A group of eight men were tried in Banda Aceh last year on charges of supporting the Free Aceh Movement, a movement that is pressing for the separation of the pro­vince of Aceh, in North Sumatra, from the Republic of Indonesia.

Aceh, a staunchly Islamic region, was the last part of Indonesia to be subdued by the Dutch colonialists, after a lengthy war during the last decade of the nineteenth century. The man leading the Free Aceh Movement is Hasan Tiro who is believed to have spent most of his time abroad, though he is known to have made several clandes­tine visits to Aceh in the last few years.

Two (or one? see below) of the defendants were acquitted, while another five were found guilty and given sentences ranging from 2 to twenty years imprisonment . The verdict in the eighth case is not known.

As usual, the government has conferred its own gruesome title on this movement which is always referred to in official documents and in the press as the GPLHT, an abbreviation of Gerakan Pengacau Liar Hasan Tiro, or the "Hasan Tiro Wild Disrupters Movement".

The trials held in 1980 appear to be the second in a series of trials, the first having been held in 1979 when one of the defendants was A. Q. Joelani Abdullah, sentenced to 2;2 years. During his defence plea he told the court in detail about the torture to which he and other detainees had been subjected. (See TAPOL Bulletin No. 40, July 1980, pages 3-4.)

Although the trials reported below were held nearly a year ago, in April 1980, it has only now been possible to compile a fairly comprehensive report, though with very few details of the proceedings. Very few press reports have been received, and most of the material is based on a state­ment by Mr. Amarullah, Deputy Chairman of the Banda Aceh District Court, which was reported by Sinar Harapan (11th November 1980). Mr . Amarullah also stated that a further group of trials would be held, but nothing more has yet been heard about this.

The following are the names of the accused and the ver­dicts passed:

Tengku Usman Lampoh A we received the heaviest sentence, 20 years imprisonment with deduction for time served. Awe was described as being the Minister of Finance of the Aceh Provisional Government. Amarullah made it quite clear that the severity of Awe's sentence was prompted not by the crimes he had committed but by the obduracy of his attitude in court and his refusal to use the Indonesian language during the proceedings. His insistence on using Acehnese was rejected-and he was accused of waging a "closed-mouth movement". The 20-year sentence is all the more extraordinary since the prosecution had only demanded a 3-year sentence. Drs. Wahab Tiro, a lecturer at the Islamic Institute (IAIN), Banda Aceh, was given a 5-year sentence; the prosecution had asked for 9 years. A relative of Hasan Tiro, he is alleged

to have met Hasan Tiro during one of his visits to the pro­vince but to have failed to report this to the authorities. Abdullah Yusuf was given a 4-year sentence; the prosecu­tion had asked for 8 years. Fauzi Yahya was given 2 years instead of the 4 years de­manded by the prosecution. Mulkan Bani Usman , a law student at Unsyiah University in Banda Aceh, was sentenced to 2 years. He is said to have hoisted the Acehnese flag ' 'within a hundred metres of the military commander's residence". He told the court that he had done this "for emotional reasons" because he was very dissatisfied with the way Aceh is being administered by the central government. Tengku H. Nurdin, a member of the provincial council of Aceh (DPRD) and chairman of the Muslim party (PPP) branch in the district of Pidie, was acquitted. Another man, named as Tengku A. Manan Karim, also described as being a member of the Aceh DPRD and chairman of the Pidie branch of the PPP, is also said to have been acquitted. These would appear to be one and the same person, although the two names given are very dissimilar . Another defendant, identified only as "Drs. A . .U. T." is also reported to have been on trial in Banda Aceh in April last year. He was charged with meeting Hasan Tiro on several occasions without reporting this to the authorities. He is alleged to have been involved in an incident on 9th April 1977 in which an Indonesian soldier was killed, as well as other incidents during which a foreign employee of the Arnn Natural Gas Company was killed and another employee, a Malaysian, was injured. The other crimes he is charged with include arson and the distribution of illegal pamphlets.

No report is available of the verdict passed in the trial of "Drs. A. U. T.".

* Continued from page 1

legal profession. The disclosures split Peradin , the Bar Association, at the time. The extraordinary thing is that it has taken so long for any action to be taken.

S. Tasrif, chairperson of Peradin told Tempo (14th February 1981) that he had for years been unwilling to take any cases to court. He spoke about the frustrations of never being able to win a case because of this system of corruption.

With the Army now controlling all top posts in the legal sector, it remains to be seen whether this will lead to more exposures or on the contrary protect the key persons in the system of corruption. In particular, no action has been taken against prosecutors who are clearly also involved.

The disclosures of the past few months reveal how difficult it is for anyone to look to the courts for justice. The ex-tapol who is seeking legal protection against charges of involvement in the G30S/PKI (see page 5) i1as little reason to expect any help from those quarters.

2 TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981

BUMI MANUS/A NOT BANNED, BUT HOUNDED Copies of Bumi Manusia and Anak Semua Bangsa, the first two Buru novels by Pramoedya Ananta Toer to be pub­lished during the latter half of 1981, were removed from bookshops in Jogjakarta by the Police, and shopkeepers were told to halt sales until clearance had been given. The deputy chief of police said that copies were being taken in order to examine them and check whether the books had been banned or not. Whilst the Attorney-General's Office has announced that it was not imposing a ban, the Depart-

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INTIMIDATION OF MUSLIM ACTIVISTS With still more than a year to go before the general elec­tions scheduled to be held in mid-1982, local Muslim party officials are already being subjected to acts of intimidation by government and military officials. Such acts of intimid­ation characterised the atmosphere during the period lead· ing up to the 1971 and 1977 general elections.

A Muslim party (PPP) member of Parliament, H. M. Amin Iskandar, who is also Deputy Chairperson of the Central Elections Consultative Board, has spoken publicly (Peli ta, 28th January, 1981) of intimidatory actions taken in the sub-district of Belitung; Sumatra against a PPP commissioner and five deputy commissionerst who were summoned by "certain local officials" and subsequently ordered to issue statements resigning from these positions in the PPP.

"Such actions," said Amin lskandar, "not only lead to a sense of disappointment but also to a feeling of anxiety that an unhealthy atmosphere, hardly conducive to success­ful general elections, is already being created."

Arrests and Torture in West Java From other sources, T APOL has received news of a number of arrests of Muslims in West Java late last year. Two people, both kiayais (religious teachers) who were arrested in Tasikmalaya were both tortured. In Cipanas, district of Tasikmalaya, about 60 young people, all Muslims were taken to KORAMIL, the local Army office. Most were severely beaten, and were apparently warned "to vote for GOLKAR" (more than 18 months before the elections are due to take place!).

tThe two non-government political parties, the PPP and the PDI, are prohibited by law from setting up branches in villages; they may only have "commissioners" working on their behalf in sub-Oistricts.

ment of Education and Culture has banned the books from distribution in all schools, universities and libraries.

The Police explained that they needed to see for them­selves whether the books contained anything dangerous or disruptive. "We only want to safeguard the younger genera­tion from being caught out by harmful things."

A week later, when the Police returned the copies they had taken, shopkeepers were warned not to display the books too prominently. But no sooner had the police given "clearance" than there was a run on the books and copies were sold out in no time. (Who knows, people anxious to get their copies wanted to do so before the Police.changed their minds!) [Sources: Kedaulatan Rakyat, 17 January and 19 January 1981.]

Publishers and Printers Harassed On 20th November 1980, Hasta Mitra, the publishers of

Pramoedya's Burn novels, issued a compreh~nsive statement giving a detailed account of the reasons why they had de­cided to publish the books and describing the many interro­gations and summonses to which they had been subjected since. the first book appeared on 23rd August last year.

During the series of interrogations, interrogators had claimed, among other things, that:

- Bumi Manusia contains within it elements of class struggle,

- the way the character Robert Suurhof attacks Minke, the leading character, is "reminiscent of PKI practices", and

- the refusal of the other leading character, Nyai Ontosoroh, to acknowledge her father (who had sold her in concubinage to a Dutch businessman) was anti­Pancasila because in a Pancasila state a child would never reject its own parent.

After protracted interrogations during which officials repeatedly urged the publishers to halt any further printing and to stop distributing Bumi Manusia, though not once issuing any written document to that effect, the publishers were told that a final decision on whether the book was to be banned would be taken not by the Attorney- General, but by KOPKAMTIB, the Army's security command. No decision was ever issued by KOPKAMTIB, but on 23 October 1980, the Attorney-General officially informed the press that he would not be prohibiting distribution of Bumi Manusia.

Yet, the matter has not rested there. Basta Mitra ex­plained in its statement they had again been called to the Attbrney-General's office, whose officials now began to turn their attention to the company which printed the books. On 10th November, the director of the Ampat­Lima Printing Works was summoned for questioning, and a week later, an official from the Attorney-General's Office visited the printing works and told the management that it would be better for them not to go on printing the book. (It is understood that shortly after these events, the printing company decided to end their contract with Basta Mitra.)

TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981 3

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER GIVEN SEVERE SENTENCES

News has recently been received of two "G30S/PKI" political prisoners, a mother and daughter, who were tried together in West Java in 1979 and given extremely severe sentences. The mother Ratna Juwita, was given a life sen­tence , while her daughter , Ubed Jubaedah was given a sen­tence of 16 years, without deduction. Since they were both arrested in 1965 , this will mean that unless the daughter is granted remission, she will end up serving a sentence of 30 years.

Further details about these two cases have not yet been received, but their circumstances are described by one source as being "particularly tragic, and in desperate need of help. Everying should be done to secure justice for them".

Bukit Duri Tapols Moved to Tangerang These two women, recently transferred from West Java to Bukit Duri Prison in Jakarta , together with six other tried

FORMER PKI LEADERS NOW ABROAD WILL BE TRIED IF THEY RETURN

Translation:

"All former leaders of the G30S/PKI (30th Septem­ber Movement/Indonesian Communist Party, Tr.) now in exile abroad who intend to return to Indo­nesia, will not just be accepted back. There are regulations in force for them to be immediately arrested, interrogated and then for their cases to be resolved by means of court proceedings. That is quite clear."

This statement was made by a reliable source that was contacted by Angkatan Bersenjata this Friday morning, who went on to stress: "Let them stay abroad. Things would be safer for us here like that", he said .

With regard to Djawoto* and friends who may possibly be smuggled back to Indonesia by the Peking government , as Musa Ahmad, a former leader of the Malaysian Communist Party, was smuggled back to his country only recently , this same reliable source again stressed that they too would not evade arrest and interrogation in order for their cases to go before the courts.

"Conditions in our country clearly differ from the circumstances of Musa Ahmad. They are not the same because there are different aspects. In Singapore too, a former journalist who was arrested was afterwards able to return to his journalistic profession. Over here, things are different because there are other aspects", he said . Angkatan Bersenjata (Armed Forces Daily) 17.1.1981 *Djawoto, former Indonesian ambassador to Peking

women prisoners all of whom have been in Bukit Duri for virtually the entire period of their imprisonment, were recently moved quite unexpectedly to a women's prison in Tangerang, about 30 kilometres from Jakarta. For two weeks following the transfer, they were not permitted to receive food parcels from outside. The transfer to a prison so far from Jakarta has made it much more difficult for their families to pay regular visits to see them and deliver food.

One of the prisoners is Sri Arnbar, serving a 16-year sentence, who was scheduled for release in February this year; news of her release has not yet been received. If she is released, it will mean that she will have served 15 of her 16 years, with only one year's remission.

The other five women prisoners, now in Tangerang, are: Ta ti Harti, serving a life sentence. Sundari Abdul Rachman, serving a life sentence. Sulami, serving a sentence of 20 years. Sudjinah, serving a sentence of 18 years. Suharti Harsono, serving a sentence of 16 years. (She

was tried and sentenced together with Sri Arnbar. If granted the same ·remission, she should also now be due for release.)

All were arrested in 1965 or early 1966.

* VOTING RIGHTS FOR EX-TAPOLS ARE CONDITIONAL

Ex-tapols of all categories, A, B and C, may participate in the forthcoming general elections, due to take place in 1982, but they must conform to a number of conditions, as specified in Government Regulation No 41, 1980. These are:

That they have been returned to society for at least two years; that they have not engaged in any political activities, that they have displayed loyalty to the State, and that they are of good conduct and have not been involved in any criminal act.

Furthermore, local government authorities in Jakarta (and presumably also in other parts of the country) have recently been instructed to compile data regarding all ex­tapols, in preparation for the 1982 general elections. Accor­ding to the directives that have been issued by an official of the Jakarta Military Command, this data is to be collected by the completion of questionnaires. A complicated system of relaying this data through the various levels of local government has been designed, with the whole process lasting three months from 31st January 1981. The General Election Agency is designated as the final recipient of the data. (Kompas, 31st December 1980.)

4 TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981

EX-TAPOL SEEKS TO DEFEND HIS RJGHTS A court-case involving an ex-tapol who is suing a member of Parliament for Rp. 200 million in damages and who is being counter-sued by the same person for damages of Rp. 500 million is now being heard by a district court in Jakarta.

The ex-tapol is Ir. M. Sipahutar who spent four years as a B-I category political prisoner in Tanjung Kasau prison, North Sumatra. He was recently appointed onto the staff of experts of the central Department of Public Works in Jakarta, the only ex-tapol, to our knowledge, to have been re-employed by a government department.

Ir Sipahutar is suing Sufri Helrni Tanjung, a member of Parliament from North Sumatra, representing the Muslim party, PPP, who was quoted by a Jakarta weekly as having declared that, since he, Sipahutar, was "involved in the G30S/PKI movement" (the 1965 event that led to wide­spread arrests, TAPOL) he should not have been employed by a government department. Ir Sipahutar bases his case on the indisputable fact that he was never found guilty of in­volvement and was released from detention whithout any charge ever having been made.

Mr Sufri claims that his statement regarding Ir Sipahutar was factually correct because KOPKAMTIB issued a decis­ion in 197 5 to the effect that he was "involved in the G30S/PKI'', that he had therefore been classified as B-I category and was under detention in Tanjung Kasau prison. (B-I and other B categories are classifications officially described by KOPKAMTIB as being for those against whom no formal charges can be brought because of lack of evid­ence, TAPOL.)

Shortly after Ir Sipahutar submitted his claim to a court in Jakarta, Mr Sufri announced that he was taking out two lawsuits against Ir Sipahutar, one civil and one criminal. The civil law~uit claims damages for defamation of charac­ter, arguing that the complainant's good name as a member of Parliament, the supreme state organ, has been smeared, that this has been publicised in the press, and could "lead to negative assumptions in society because a person in­volved in the G30S/PKI is being allowed to sue a member of Parliament". Such an act, the lawsuit claims, could also "disturb national security".

The demand that criminal charges be brought against Ir Sipahutar is based on the grounds that "as a person in­volved in the G30S/PKI, he should be formally tried before a court of law".

The press clippings on which the above report is based are from Pelita (29th December 1980 and 21st January 1981) and Waspada (19th December 1980). They provide ample coverage of Mr Sufri's case while hardly explaining Ir Sipahutar's position. TAPOL hopes to be able to report on this case more fully if further information becomes available. The issue at stake is very important because it is the first time that an ex-tapol has sought the protection of a court of law against the allegation of "involvement in the G30S/PKI". It remains to be seen whether the court will be willing to pronounce on a decision taken by KOPKAMTIB which has no formal basis whatever under

the Constitution or established laws but which has con­demned as "guilty" hundreds of thousands of people whom it was never able to bring before the courts for trial.

Terror Tactics Through Media Meanwhile press reports reminiscent of the terror tactics

used by the media in 1965 and 1966 to condemn people of involvement in the G30S have begun to appear in connec­tion with Ir Sipahutar's lawsuit. The Military Commander of North Sumatra declared (Waspada, 18th December 1980) that he would check to see whether Ir Sipahutar had the "necessary clearance" for the job he !!OW had. "The G30S/ PKI is not a closed question", he said, "and must still be regarded as ... a latent danger".

Several Jakarta dailies, including Pelita and Berita Buana (15th January 1981), reported a visit to Parliament by Hasyan Nasution, ex-member of the Action Command for the Annihilation of the G30S/PKI in North Sumatra. He expressed strong support for recent statements by Interior Minister, General Amir Machmud who called for greater vigilance towards a "PKI comeback". Nasution met Syufri Helmy Tanjung and told him that Sipahutar's lawsuit had evoked "serious reactions" in North Sumatra, particularly from other ex-members of the "Annihilation Command". Several of them, he said, felt the call to rise in defence of the New Order. ''We are prepared to appear as witnesses in court and provide testimony of his involvement in the PKI", said Nasution.

"TROMPET MASJARAKAT" THEN AND NOW In december 1980, the Jakarta daily, Merdeka, pub­lished two articles on guerrilla activities in East Java in 1948 and 1949 when Republican forces faced some of their worst setbacks in terms of lost territory.

The writer who himself helped consolidate contacts between Republican areas and Republican guerrillas operating in Dutch-controlled areas, repeat­edly stressed the crucial role of the pro-Republican press in keeping the public informed of the con­tinuing struggle for independence in such a difficult period. He singled out two newspapers for special commendation: Merdeka and the Surabaya-based Trompet Masjarakat.

But what of the subsequent fate of those two dailies? Merdeka still flourishes today, but Trompet Masjarakat was one of the many dailies banned in October 1965 after the Army took control. And what of Trompet Masjarakat's proprietor, Goei Poo An who also edited the paper till 1962 and who is also mentioned several times in the Merdeka article? He was kidnapped and killed soon after his paper was banned. But Merdeka could hardly be expected, in the present atmosphere, to mention that ...

TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981 s

THE "INDONESIANISATION'' OF EAST TIMOR Two documents about East Timar reached us recently by two people who take opposing views on Indonesia's annexation. They both provide devastating information about conditions in the country which is now under Indonesian occupation.

The first article below summarises a paper by Donald Weatherbee of South Carolina University who argues that Indonesia had no alternative but to annex East Timar. The second is a quotation from a report by Father Pat Walsh of Action for World Development, Australia, who sums up his findings from a 2U­month tour to Washington, Europe and Indonesia during which he met many people with intimate know­ledge about conditions in East Timar.

Donald Weatherbee of the Institute of International Studies at the University of South Carolina, possibly the only Western academic regarded by the Indonesian government as being trustworthy enough to visit East Timar has recent­ly produced a paper which provides a detailed account of the style and objectives of Indonesia's colonisation of its "27th province" of East Timar.

The paper, quite bluntly entitled "The Indonesianisation of East Timar", was presented at the 20th Annual Meeting of the South-east conference Association for Asian Studies on 24th January, 1981. It describes a system of local administration that is quite deliberately designed to destroy utterly the whole way of life of the people of East Timar in order to secure clear military objectives. Although Weather­bee starts by referring to Indonesia's "priority task" of putting in place a "civil administration structure", he pro­ceeds to show that whilst the formal trappings of local government such as exist in every Indonesian province have been set up (the Daerah Tingkat I, thekabupaten , the kecamatan, the desa and the rukun tetangga ), it is through the network of military commands that accompany civil administration everywhere that East Timar is actually controlled .

It is in the KOD!Ms (military district commands) and the KORAM!Ls (military sub-district commands) that the local. policy and programme implementation takes place.

The reasons, as he sees it, are the "low level" of (Timorese) skills in the localities, the fact that the Army controls the resources necessary for administration and reconstruction, anj what he rather cautiously refers to as "lingering milit­ary concerns about loyalties". He asserts that at the senior level in Jakarta and Dili , there is "a high degree of sensitiv­ity to possible areas of irritation and conflict", prompted, he says , by the kind of integration problems Indonesia has experienced in lrian Jaya (West Irian). On the other hand, however ,

Problems do exist . .. in the translation of this sensitivity at the policy level into sensitivity at the village level where policy is implemented on a daily face-to-face basis with Timorese people.

Could these "problems" be solved by training a new Timorese elite to assume the roles now being filled by evidently unwelcome soldiers? Hardly, reports Weatherbee. Although he says that Timorese are being "upgraded" and given "short courses" in administration, the "policy-makers reject the concept that a new East Timorese elite is being created to assume the tasks of governance in East Timar". He then goes on :

As long as Fretilin, or even a more generalised fear of separatism, conditions thinking about the Timorisation of the real instru­ments of administration and politics in the province, there will be reluctance iii some leadership quarters to tum critical resources over to a new elite.

Here, too, Indonesia's "dilemma" in West Irian is used to illustrate his point. He refers to a remark made recently by a Papuan member of Indonesia's parliament to the effect that some Indonesian officials believe that "if too many native sons assume important positions (in West Irian), a Papuan state will be born". (See TAPOL Bulletin, No. 43, January 1981, page 5, for a fuller account of this statement.)

The second point Weatherbee makes is that the "village clusters" around which local administration has been con­structed are quite different from the villages formerly in­habited by the population of East Tim or, since they "re­present a resettlement policy designed to create 150 new population groupings" with a total population of 200,000 people. Very different indeed, since until the devastating bombardment of East Timor's mountainous regions where most of the people lived, they dwelt in "tiny, highly dis­persed hamlets of two to five houses", as described by the American anthropologist Elizabeth Traube when testifying before a US congressional sub-committee in June, 1977. (Profe.ssor Traube did field research in E. Timor from Octo­ber 1972 to November 1974.)

The 150 "new population groupings" are in fact the camps into which desperately hungry and diseased people were coralled by the Indonesian army in 1978 and 1979 after they had been forced to leave their mountain abodes. A significant part of development funds, provided for E. Timor by Indonesia, says Weatherbee, has been invested in "making permanent the resettlement pattern in East Timor", and goes on: " . . . the already uprooted people cannot be allowed to drift back to the interior valleys and high mountains.* Social and economic development requires the disruption of the traditional modes of life." The point is pressed home again in the following words:

These new population aggregations forced into the new locales by the circumstances of war and the necessity of supplemental feeding, are designed to become the basis for the "Indonesian­ised" Timorese social order.

And the reasons for this new "social order"? Well, there's the matter of ease of administrative control of course. Bvt in addition, there is a "dual security aspe~t". These are: "(1) keeping amnestied Fretilin groups under oversight (our emphasis) and (2) isolating the Fretilin rem-

*Our emphasis.

6 TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981

nants from potential support". A footnote about these Fretilin groups ''under oversight" refers to a "settlement" in Ostiko which Weatherbee visited. It contains nearly 900 men, women and children who surrendered in February 1979. Physical conditions were little different, he says, from those in other settlements, the major difference being that international relief agencies were not present. "Ostiko", says Weatherbee, "represents the eventual prob­lem of reintegrating (sic) Fretilin followers into the general population." In Weatherbee's view it is "exaggerated" and "inaccurate" to refer to the "new population aggregates" (a conveniently neutral term, if there ever was one) as "strategic hamlets" or "concentration camps" as some critics of Indonesia are inclined to do. But he does admit that

resettlement policy in East Timor, as in any other area where a dominant population seeks to "integrate" a dependent, traditional minority into a modern state, will threaten aspects of the Timorese cultural identity as they are "de-traditionalised" and "Indonesianised". Although Indonesian leaders promise to respect the customs ... of the people, these have vital meaning in the social and productive relations that are under the attack of "development".

"East Timor bears all the marks of an occupied country."

·From ''Notes on the East Timor Issue" by Father Pat Walsh.

The weight of evidence (however), strongly suggests that the principal reason for the army's exaggerated presence in East Timor is the lack of security there. The army is not there primarily for developmental, technical or domestic defence .Purposes. like any army its primary purpose is coercion. Integration has ' not been a peaceful process in East Tim or. It has been forced on East Tim or and until the army is confident integration will stick of itself it will not run the risks associated with premature withdrawal and civilianisation.

East Timor bears all the marks of an occupied country. Passage to and from East Timor is restricted to selected individuals and is closely controlled by Hankam* and Intelligence. Outgoing mail is censored. Phone calls from Dili are monitored. The movements of the handful of foreign aid officials permitted in East Timor are restricted and controlled by the military whom the aid personnel label as "paranoic". The travel documents (surat jalan) of people-including Indonesian civilians-entering and leaving Dili are examined at fixed checkpoints. Long queues of travellers are asked what the Pancasila is, which party did you belong to, who are your friends, where are you going and for how long. In the words of one Indonesian "the Intelligence treat people like dogs". Dili citizens must carry identity cards at all times. Various curfews apply in Dili. Intelligence personnel-many of them Chinese, especially

*Hankam: Department of Defence and Security.

He even discerns an additional "flaw" in Indonesia,s policy because he fears that the "agricultural foundations of the resettlement areas are inadequate for the support of the populations in them".

The restrictions (ou~ emphasis) imposed on return to abandoned arable land now beyond the bounds of permissible settlement means that less land is available (his emphasis).

This problem, he suggests could be solved by the intro­duction of modern technology, a process that will however take a number of years to pay off. Under the circumstances, Weatherbee believes that the alternatives facing the ·popula­tion are permanent dependence Qn external food supplies or "another emergency". He offers this presumably as a warning to the Indonesians for he adds that "With respect to questions of psychological integration, persistent hunger and landlessness will not hasten 'lndonesianisation "'. His closing word of advice is that "looser administration" (more freedom of movement for the population, presumably) would enable "faster recovery" but adds ominously that "the decisions will not be made in Timor but in Jakarta".

those who can speak English and Portuguese, pose as taxi­drivers and restaurant waiters. People are afraid to speak openly. Penalties in the form of extra taxes and jQb dis­missals continue to be imposed on those who refuse to take out Indonesian citizenship. People visiting Dili to obtain food may take away no more than s kilos of rice and 2 of sugar to ensure their return and that they do not have enough to pass on to Fretilin. Since the June 10 attack on Dili, a strip of land bordering the southern perimeter of Dili has been converted into a no-man's land as a security measure. Refugees squatting there have had to move with­in Dili proper. Arrests continue to be made without due process. Order without law is the norm, as one Indonesian put it. Eight kepala desa (village heads) in the eastern sector were arrested in the first half of 1980 on suspicion of asso­ciation with Fretilin. Fretilin does in fact have many family connections with the population in this area. Several hundred people were arrested in Dili consequent on the June 10 assault. Some were released after representations were made by the ICRC. 98 were still in prison in mid August 1980.

The number of prisons and the number of prisoners and their conditions are difficult to establish with accuracy. One well-placed source believes there are at least thfee prisons: one at Comarca in Dili, two in the interior, and possibly a fourth on the island of Atauro-off Dili. Others were more sure of Atauro's use as a prison stating that whereas previously it had served as a detention centre for the discipline of troublesome Indonesian troops, it was now used for Timorese, especially those suspected of involvement with Fretilin. Whilst there is no doubt the Sang Tai Ho shopping complex formerly served as a front for an Intelligence interrogation/detention centre , opinions on its current use varied with some maintaining part of it was still used by Intelligence and others asserting it was now used solely for commercial purposes.

TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981 7

State Department Report on Human Rights in Indonesia:

A BIT OF CRITICISM, A LOT OF COVER-UP

The US State Department has published another of its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The document, published on 2nd February 1981, contains a long chapter on Indonesia.

Country Reports is published each year under the terms of Sections 116(d) and 502(b) of the Foreign Assistance Act, adopted by the US Congress in the mid-seventies, which require the US government to take account of the human rights record of governments to which economic and military assistance is granted. Despite the inaugur­ation as President of Ronald Reagan, who is not the slight­est bit interested in human rights, the US human rights legislation has institutionalised these annual reports as well as the special human rights division and desk officers at the State Department. Congressional amendments would be needed to alter this.

The State Department's chapter on Indonesia is surpris­ingly comprehensive in the topics touched upon and even levels a few fairly pointed criticisms, but on the whole, as in past y~ars, it represents a gross understatement of the real situation, and in some cases, a positive cover-up.

Political Imprisonment The chapter comments in a number of places on the detention without trial of Muslims, referred to in one place as "bandits and extremists". It also speaks of disappearances of "members of extremist Muslim groups classified by the government as subversives", and gives the figure of 175 for the number of Muslim detainees, according to the Legal Aid Institute. (The Institute's actual figure was 500, not 175. See TAPOL Bulletin, No. 40, July 1980, page 3.)

The length of the paragraph dealing with the arrest and detention of people allegedly involved in the Aceh-Freedom Movement suggests that the scale of human rights abuse in that part of the country is now very extensive indeed. According to the State Department, eight persons have been tried and sentenced, in some case up to 20 years, and more trials are to be expected. Without the slightest comment, it adds that, "lenient" sentence.s given to some were not given to "those with uncompromising separatist attitudes", a tacit admission that the length of sentence ~as determined not by the committal of crimes proven by law but by the "attitudes" of the persons on trial. (For further information on this, please turn to page 2.)

With regard to the remaining "G30S" political prisoners, the State Department repeats the Indonesian Government's claim that the 23 A-category prisoRers, still awaiting trial after completion of the release programme at the end of 1979, have all been tried or released, except one con­sidered as "too incapacitated because of illness" to stand trial. Information sent to T APOL does not confirm that there are no more 1965 political prisoners awaiting trial. On the contrary we have received the names of three prisoners

in Jakarta alone who are still awaiting trial. They are: General Pranoto Reksomudero, the man whose appoint­ment by President Sukarno in October 1965 as caretaker commander of the Army after the murder of General Yani was deliberately ignored by Suharto and who has been under arrest since 1966, General Rukman, formerly Inspector-General of the Army, second in command, and also arrested in the late nineteen-sixties, and Brigadier-General Suharyo, a former regional command­er, who was arrested immediately after his return home to Indonesia from Moscow where he had been living in exile until 1976, and who has been in detention ever since.

Regarding the verdicts in the 22 trials said to have taken place in 1980 (surprisingly little has appeared in the Indo­nesian press about these trials), the State Department reports:

For one of the 22, the case was "closed" in pre-trial proceedings, and the prisoner freed ... Two, both ex­military, were tried in military courts. One, a former Army captain, was sentenced to 14 years, the sentence reduced by time spent in detention. The other, a former warrant officer, was sentenced to 14 years and 6 months, without reduction of sentence. The remaining 19, tried in civil courts, received sentences ranging from 3 to 19 years, all with sentences reduced by time spent in detention.

The mention of one person as being "incapacitated by ill­ness" would appear to refer to Mr Arrnunanto, a former Minister of Mines, held for 14 years without trial. He is known to have been gravely ill before his eventual release in September 1980. He died soon after returning home from prison.

On the political trials, the State Department attempts to disprove the charge that Indonesian courts operate under government pressure by stating that one of the 22 A­category cases was dropped "in pre-trial proceedings". But the State Department should know very well that there is no such thing as "pre-trial proceedings" in political cases, only endless interrogations, mainly by Army interrogators, with the prisoner denied the right to legal aid. If one of the cases was dropped, this was certainly not a court decision, but a decision by the Army not to pursue the case. There is nothing unusual in that. After all, at one time, there were said to be 5 ,000 A-category prisoners awaiting trial, of whom only a little over a thousand were ever actually tried. This in no way reflects on the position of the courts vis-a­vis government pressure. The State Department's other argument to prove that the judiciary is independent is that one of the 35 students brought for trial was acquitted. A single acquittal out of so many cases would on the contrary

8 TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981

seem to confirm that courts almost invariably find in favour of the prosecution!

Religious Freedom Indonesia, we are told, is a secular' state with a constitution that provides for religious tolerance. But how does -religious tolerance fit in with the require­ment .that every citizen must accept the Panca Sila and its first principle of "belief in One God"? Moreoever, there are only five monotheist religions to which people may adhere, not to mention atheism which is totally excluded.

As for the numerous infringements of Muslim religious freedoms that have occurred during 1980, these are dismiss­ed as nothing more than "government security agents interrupt(ing) sermons critical of the government ... in several mosques", hardly an appropriate description for the banning of preachers, the vetting and rejection of sermons, troops firing into the air when congregations protested against the appearance of Army-appointed preachers on their pulpits, the arrest of mosque officials for appointing undesirable preachers, and the mal-treatment to which one preacher was subjected (see TAPOL Bulletin No. 43, January 1981,page6-7.)

East Timor Whilst claiming on the one hand that lack of detailed information plus "social disruption and popul­ation displacement" has compounded the problem of checking the veracity of Amnesty International charges that a number of people have disappeared in East Timor, the State Department admits that

on the whole, the Indonesian government has not devoted adequate attention and resources to resolving the question of disappearances in East Timor.

The State Department also points out that the International Red Cross is still not permitted to inspect detention centres, one of the crucial ways for tracing the whereabouts of people wqo have been arrested.

For the rest, the abuse of human rights in E. Timar would appear, in State Department perceptions, to be confined to the detention of some "300400 persons" (including ordinary criminals as well as Fretilin support-

ers, we are told). Rebutting "charges of forced settlement '' in East Timor, the State Department claims that there has been

no short-term alternative to the emergency relief and care of large numbers of Timorese in resettlement centres,

and asserts that restrictions on the movement of people "have been considerably eased during the past year". Trucks carrying food supplies, we are told, frequently encounter "hitch-hikers" (a choice of wording that makes it sound quite jolly to be roaming in the East Timor country­side) who are "moving to a different settlement area, usually one closer to their original home". The restrictions placed on population movement as described in a recent article by Donald Weatherbee (for a summary, please turn to page 6) provide us with a very different picture from the rosy account given by the State Department. And where in the range of human rights abuse is one supposed to place the Ostiko camp , mentioned in a footnote by Weatherbee, which holds 900 men, women and children, who surrendered to the Indonesians in February 1979? Nowhere, according to the State Department.

Finally, if we are to believe the State Department, the Indonesian government has "expanded access to East Timar" during 1980. Can they really expect us to believe that visits by · carefully selected journalists, by certain members of the diplomatic corps and by avowedly pro­Indonesian members of the US Congress has anything to do with "expanding access". And why, in the UK, was Baroness Joan Vickers , for many years chairperson of the Anglo-Indonesia Association , allowed to visit East Timar, while Lord Avebury , who represents an important group of parliamentarians concerned with human rights in both the Commons and the Lords, was not allowed to go?

West Irian Despite the many reports received during 1980 about killings, disappearances, arrests and detention in West Irian, this area does not even earn so much as a passing reference in the State Department's entire chapter on Indonesia.

WHEN IS A WORKER NOT A WORKER? A dispute has arisen between a lawyer and a senior official of the Department of Labour over the status of domestic servants, known in Indonesia as babu for women and jongos for men. The lawyer, Azhar Achmad, insists that they are workers and are entitled to the rights and pro­tections guaranteed in the 1957 Labour Law. The Director-General for the Protection of Labour at the De­partment of Labour claims that they are not because they work for individuals, not enterprises. In any case, he says, in other contries they are not workers because they are always called "domestic servants".

The controversy arose following publicity given to two young "babus" aged 16 and 14 who were severely mal­treated by their employer. The older girl, Misnah, was badly scalded with hot water, thrown over her because she ''worked too slowly". Both village girls came to Jakarta looking for work. They worked for their employer

for 18 months without receiving any wages, only shelter and food . (Tempo , 14 March 1981.)

Mismah, her face still scarred from the scald.

Ostojo Oesman

TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981 9

AUSTRALIAN JOURNALIST ORDERED TO LEA VE INDONESIA

Peter Rodgers, the last remaining resident Australian journ­alist in Indonesia, has been ordered to leave the country, following the refusal of the Indonesian authorities to renew his work visa which expired on 22nd January this year.

Peter Rodgers has worked in Indonesia for 2~ years, and writes for a number of Australian publications, including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the National Times, as well as the Hongkong­based Far Eastern Economic Review.

He is the journalist who sent out a number a horrifying photographs of emaciated children in East Timor following a visit there in October 1979. His report accompanying the photos quoted relief workers as comparing the situation in E. Timor with the worst they had seen in Kampuchea and Biafra. Although the photographs had been taken with the permission and even encouragement of Indonesian officicals in E. Timor, Rodgers was refused permission to transmit them by satellite after he returned to Jakarta. He therefore smuggled them out of the country. The report represented a major breakthrough in the blackout that has surrounded the tragic events surrounding Indonesia's forced annexation of E. Timor and earned Rodgers the Australian 1979 Journalist of the Year Award.

No Protest from the Australian Government There has been considerable dismay in Australia at the Australian government's failure to protest to Indonesia over Rodgers' expulsion. All it did was to express "regret" and "disappointment" and to announce that efforts were being made to persuade the Indonesian government to reconsider its decision, efforts which proved quite fruitless. Mr Bowen, Acting Leader of the Labour Party Opposition, described the expulsion as a "provocative, unfriendly act" and said that it was quite predictable following the failure of the At:stralian government to deliver a strong protest last July when another Australian journalist, Warwick Beutler, chief correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Cor­poration in Jakarta, was ordered to leave Indonesia.

Although Rodgers has not been formally notified of the reasons for his expulsion, it is widely reported that he was told by senior military and intelligence officers in Jakarta that "great resentment" was still felt towards him for his late 1979 repbrt about E. Timar and particularly because he smuggled out the devastating photographs. After that incident, Rodgers' position in Indonesia became more tenuous as his work visa , which had till then been renew­able annually, was tightened up to require renewal every six months.

A senior officicl of the Indonesian Information Depart­ment has said that the decision to expel Rodgers was act­ually taken in July 1980 when his last work visa came up for renewal. His visa was renewed then because it was con­sidered unwise to expel him so soon after Beutler's expul-

sion . The Indonesians also wanted to test the Australian government 's reaction to the first expulsion before going ahead with another one. In the event, they were clearly encouraged by Australia's passive response.

No More Direct Reporting for Australian Press The Indonesian authorities have also made it clear that they no longer wish to permit any Australian journalists to undertake direct reporting of events in Indonesia. This comes at a time when there is heightened unrest and crit­icism of the Suharto government, as the 1982 general elec­tions draw near. When Beutler was expelled, Indonesian officials said they were particularly upset by the ABC's extensive coverage of Indonesian news in its Indonesian­language broadcasts which are estimated to be heard by an audience of some 30 million Indonesians. "If the reports were only broadcast in English," said one official at the time, "we wouldn't mind so much.'' Such reasoning cannot apply to Rodgers who only writes in English. Indonesia's attitude clearly has far more to do with the general compre­hensive nature of reporting about Indonesia in the Austral­ian· press, and the fact that many events that are censored in the Indonesian press get reported in Australia and are relayed back to Indonesia through the AB.C or by other means.

Other journalists who have had trouble with the Jakarta authorities since Beutler's expulsion include Paul Zach, a freelance journalist writing for the Washington Post who was ordered to leave, and David Jenkins who has for many years been chief Jakarta correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Under pressure from the authorities, Jenkins has now left Indonesia and works from Singapore.

Considering Indonesia's size and its relative economic and strategic importance, the number of foreign journalists working there is surprisingly small. There are only 25 resident foreign journalists, six of whom are Japanese. The number of foreign journalists is effectively kept down because of the long-standing difficulties encountered in obtaining work visas and because of the many restrictions placed on news-gathering by the military authorities.

Sources include: Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 1981; The Age, Melbourne, 31 January 1981; Australian Financial Review. 30 January 1981.

10 TAPOL Bulletin No . 44 March 1981

BOOK IlEVIEWS Vrouwen van Indonesia: Strijd om het Bestaan. (The Women of Indonesia: The Struggle for Existence.) Published by the Women's Group, Dutch Indonesia Committee, 1980. Address: Minahasastraat, 1; Amsterdam 1094 RS. 94 pages. Price: 10 guilders (plus postage).

Mrs. Otih (25 years old), Mah Jtah (45 years old) and Mrs. Unah (25 years old} are agricultural labourers. When a Pikiran Rakyat journalist met them and asked them what Kartini Day means to them, they were digging land belonging to a doctor. " ... we don't really understand what' emancipation means. If it means doing the same work as men, then we are probably emancipated. The thing that upsets us is, why are we paid a different wage. We get only half of what a man is paid." (Pikiran Rakyat, 21st April 1979.)

21st April is the day celebrated every year as Kartini Day to com­memorate the woman born over a hundred years ago into feudal Javanese society who, in her short life, challenged the shackles im­posed on women by that society and upheld the right of women to a full education. Today, Kartini Day celebrations are the prerogative of women's organisations that must comply with the principle that women may only organise themselves as wives, the wives of Army officers, the wives of railway officials, the wives of officials of this or that department. Their objectives must be those insisted upon by Indonesia's military rulers-that women have the duty to be dedi­cated wives and mothers. Kartini's ideals could hardly have been more grotesquely betrayed.

The Women's Group of the Dutch-Indonesian Committee have produced a beautifully-illustrated and well-researched book which effectively exposes this kind of hypocrisy and provides a wealth of material about the conditions of women in present-day Indonesia. The first chapter, from which the above quotation was taken, gives an insight into the sexist attitudes of many different ethnic societies in Indonesia in the subordinate role they designate to women. Present-day school books consolidate the image with reading exer­cises and illustrations such as the following:

ibu bekerja

ibu bekerja di dapur

ibu memasak

ibu memasak untuk ayah

ibu memasak untuk edi

ibu memasak untuk ani

ibu memasak untuk ita

ibu memasak untuk keluarga

Mother cooks in the kitchen Mother cooks for father.

Mother cooks for the family.

ayah bekerja

ayah bekerja di kantor

ayah bekerja untuk ibu

ayah bekerja untuk edi

ayah bekerja untuk ani

ayah bekerja untuk ita

ayah bekerja untuk keluarga

Father works in the office.

Father works for mother.

Father works for the family.

A chapter on the harsh training of Balinese dancers presents in the words of a Balinese dancer herself, the bitter ordeal of a young girl forced to go through the rigorous training of a dancer:

the gruelling day-long exercises, the humiliating services that have to be performed for the teacher, and the way she is virtually abandoned by her family to the unscrupulous treatment of her teacher. Next time, dear reader, when you watch the breath-taking performance of a Balinese dance troupe, spare a thought for what that excellence has cost in terms of human suffering.

The impact of current economic policies on the employment opportunities of women, particularly in the countryside, is well­documented. The rapid collapse of small-scale, labour-intensive industries and the damaging effect of the introduction of the sickle and the mechanisation of many processes related to rice-harvesting and processing have been particularly devastating for women. These activities have provided women in the past with an important source of livelihood, and their destruction is driving tens of thousand~ of women out of the villages and into the big cities where all that awaits them is work as domestic servants or prostitution. It is now a fact that well over 50% of migrants from villages to big cities are women. One of the few sectors of modern industry providing employment opportunities for women is the electronics industry where they must perform tedious, unremitting work that is damag­ing to their eyesight, for very low wages and without the right to unionise.

Perhaps the best researched and most original chapter in the book is the one dealing with prostitution. It git"es an account of prostitution as operated by the traditional, Javanese itinerant dancing troupes, and provides a wealth of material about hotel prostitution, promoted today by such glamorous New Order person­alities as the president's wife, Mrs. Tien Suharto and Ibnu Sutowo, the erstwhile President-Director of the state oil company, Pertamina. It also provides a mass of detail about the exploitation of street and brothel prostitutes. Emphasising the hypocrisy of present­day social attitudes in Indonesia, the writer of this chapter points out that the "polite" term for prostitute is now W.T.S., an abbre­viation for wanita tuna susila meaning "woman without morals".

For any readers able to read Dutch, this is an invaluable docu­ment, and for anyone working on women's issues, it would be well worth considering the possibility of publishing some or all the chapters in English.

Suharto's Indonesia, Hamish McDonald: Fontana/Collins, Victoria, Australia. Price: A$5.95 .

Hamish McDonald was the first in a line of Australian journalists forced to leave Indonesia under pressure from the authorities. When he left in 1978, the man who replaced him, writing for the same group of dailies and weeklies, was Peter Rodgers who has now had his marching orders too.

McDonald's book is hardly likely to convince the Indonesian authorities that they were wrong to ask him to leave. While it is in no sense a hard-hitting account of Indonesia under Suharto's rule, there is more than enough in it to ensure its exclusion from general distribution in Indonesia. It scores particularly in its plentiful supply of biographical detail about Suharto himself and his coterie of associates who have assisted him in his rise to power since the late 1950s when they jointly ran lucrative business enterprises in Central Java during Suharto's term as Commander of the Diponegoro Division. As far back as 1959, Suharto "was found to be involved in the smuggling of sugar and other produce'', yet he was saved from public exposure and prosecution by General Nasution, and quietly removed as Commander to be placed on the staff of the Aril,ly's Command School in Bandung. As McDonald shows, it was here that he first made the acquaintance of the team of economists, later to become known as the "Berkeley Mafia", who have served him so well since he took power in 1966.

McDonald's summary of Suharto's cunning use of "constitution­alism" to remove Sukarno from power adds virtually nothing to what has already been said in other journalistic accounts, in par­ticular that given in Brian May's An Indonesian Tragedy. But he doesn't accept blindly the Army's version of what happened in 01,;tober 1965 and refers fairly extensively to alternative theories of those events, particularly those of Ruth McVey and Ben Anderson in their "Cornell Paper" and subsequent writings. Yet,

TAPOL Bulletin No. 44 March 1981 11

ANOTHER FREE-PAPUA LEADER CAPTURED Paulus Kantuy Pesakor, who has commanded a Free-Papua Organisation (OPM) unit operating in the region of Jayapura, capital of West Irian, was captured recently together with a number of his men, according to a report from Antara news agency.

Pesakor was one of the first to take to the jungles in 1969 after the "act of free choice". He had for a time been fighting together with Martin Tahu whose arrest occurred last year, after being tricked into negotiations by the Indo­nesian authorities. Pesakor may possibly have been caught in the same way. The announcement by" the Indonesian authorities claimed that "150 rebels had given themselves

Continued from page 11.

having studied their material, it is surprising that he still frequently refers to the event as "Untung's coup attempt".

The chapter on East Timor provides some useful early quotes from the Indonesian press, such as a warning from the Army's daily, Derita Yudha, in August 1974 that "rights to self-determina­tion could not be separated from "general world strategies", and gives an interesting survey of Indonesia's, or to be more precise, Ali Murtopo's tactics during the series of negotiations with Portugal. The many figures who made up Murtopo's "special operations" team are identified and their persistent interveption in East Timorese politics fairly well documented. And he provides an interesting insight into US collusion with Indonesia's decision to invade E. Timor when he relates how the invasion was originally scheduled for 5th December 1975, the day President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger were due in Jakarta on a state visit.

American intelligence learnt of this highly compromising time­table and successfully demanded that the operation be post­poned until after Ford left on 6th December. In Jakarta Kissinger raised no objection to the intervention, stipulating only that the Indonesians did it "quickly, efficiently and don't use our equipment". (He was to be disappointed on all three counts.)

Suharto's Indonesia is essentially a journalistic account, lacking in careful analysis. The only attempt to probe deeper is McDonald's opening sally into an account of the role of mysticism in Suharto's outlook. No one would deny that mysticism is a component of Suharto's character but to attempt a comparison between Suharto an~ the "bumbling Semar", chief of the clown-gods in wayang drama, is pure nonsense and only shows how some people have been taken in by Suharto's deliberate use of wayang imagery as he trampled underfoot all opposition standing between him and the pinnacle of power.

The weakest chapters of all are those about the economy. The most glaring omission is his failure, when describing the rescue operation mounted by western powers to re-schedule Indonesia's foreign debt, to explain that the crucial thing required of Indonesia, before this operation could start in real earnest, was the dismantling of foreign trade controls and the enactment of a benevolent Foreign Investment Law.

The chapter on political prisoners provides some useful add­itional information about Bur~, which McDonald visited in 1977. There is corroborative information about several mass murders, and the verbatim reproduction of a statement by Prarnoedya Ananta Toer describing in detail how his whole library and extensive collec­tion of historical records was removed from his home by the Army and subsequently confiscated, not, as had previously been thought, destroyed by the mobs who attacked his home before his arrest. In other words, this was a deliberate act of vandalism by the military.

Material like this makes the book a worthwhile acquisition, but the definitive work on Suharto's Indonesia still remains to be written.

up". (Zelfbeschikking, 11th Year, No. 6, Nov/Dec. 1980.)

Details of a Disappearance Meanwhile, news has reached TAPOL of a disappearance that occurred two years ago in West Irian, as well as of several persons in detention.

The man who disappeared was M. Fatahan, originally from Ternate. In April 1976, he and his family fled from West Irian and took refuge in Papua New Guinea, but shortly afterwards, they were all forced to return to Indo­nesian territory by the PNG authorities. Immediately after­wards, Fatahan was arrested by the military and held by the local KOMRES for more than a year. After his release, when he discovered that his former job with the Forestry Department was no longer available to him, he took a job with the military unit whose prisoner he had been.

In September 1978, he was invited to join a hunting party sent out by KODAM, the provincial military command. The party of men were away from 8th-11th September, but when they returned Fatahan was not with them. Efforts by his family to meet the man who had led the· hunting party failed, and no account of what happened has ever been given. According to one contact in West Irian, Fatahan's body was discovered by villagers living near lake Sentani, chopped up and packed in a drum, floating·on the lake. The same contact said that many people have disap­peared but this was the only case regarding which he had adequate details. The "brains" behind disappearences is thought to be an official working at KODAM named Tan Tjie Go.

. . . and Several Detainees In July, 1979, as a reprisal against an abortive attack launched by the OPM on Jayapura, the Indonesian authori­ties, unable to reach the guerrillas themselves, arrested a number of alleged sympathisers. In this wave of arrests, 150 people were detained, of whom, according to our source, about 50 were still in detention in late 1980. One of the 50 is Celsius Wapai, a polio cripple. He was first arrested in 1969, on the occasion of the "act of free choice", and was arrested again in 1972. Since his arrest in 1979, his wages have been stopped, and his family living in Jayapura are known to be living in straitened circumstances.

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